I don't own anything except Victor Corvin, James MacPherson, and Tamara Klein

***

That night, mere hours after we rescued Ziggy and MOMO, dinner was a somewhat livelier affair. I ended up spending a good deal of it explaining certain things to the cyborg. "So you were Seth Connors?" Ziggy asked.

I shook my head. "Not precisely. That was certainly the name I was using at the time, but the real Seth Connors was a friend of mine who died millennia ago. But, yes, you knew me by that name. As for how, I am Immortal." I gave him a shortened version of what I'd told Shion and Allen earlier.

"I see," he said when I had finished. "And you have no idea how this came about?"

"No. I've clandestinely undergone genetic testing, to see if anything would turn up, but the results were indistinguishable from human norm. I guess that there are simply things that cannot be explained by science. Call it magic if you will; the fact remains that I cannot die, and this can even be proven. Just ask Shion. When the Woglinde blew, I was still aboard, and she was present when my corpse was retrieved. She's no doctor, but any scientist can tell when a person is dead. I simply didn't stay that way." I sipped my drink. "That testing, by the way, is the only time I've seen a doctor since becoming Immortal. Even my prosthetic arm was fitted by cyberneticists, not medics."

"Then you can't regenerate limbs?"

"Nope. I heard of one fellow by the name of Xavier St. Cloud, who, before I became Immortal, had his right hand cut off by one of the Highlanders, Duncan MacLeod. The next time MacLeod saw him, he had a hook at the end of his arm, instead."

"Is this MacLeod still alive?" Shion asked.

"I don't really know," I replied. "I used to have contacts among the Watchers, a secret society that observes and records the lives and battles of Immortals, but that was eons ago, and they wouldn't have told me anything about another Immortal, anyway. The only one I ever heard of that broke the rules was Joe Dawson, and I think he died in the 21st century. MacLeod may well still be alive, but if so, it's probably under another name." I turned back to Ziggy. "That was some nice flying back there, by the way. I'd have laid odds that you would have been hit long before you actually were."

"Actually, MOMO was flying," Ziggy said. "I can pilot, but I was of more use at the guns."

Across the room, Tony spewed out whatever concoction he'd been drinking and started choking. I burst out laughing. "Find it hard to believe that the young Realian could handle a ship better than you, Tony? Must be a blow to your ego."

He couldn't respond; just kept sputtering and glared at me.

I grinned. "Well, now that our pilot with the gas-giant ego has been taken down a notch, I think I'll turn in." I got up, then paused in the doorway. "By the way, Shion, when can we expect contact with headquarters?"

"Sometime tomorrow," she replied. "The captain says we'll be arriving at the Dock Colony in the afternoon, and I'll try getting through before then."

"Right. See you all in the morning."

***

Shion did manage to get through to the Dammerung quickly the next morning. She immediately began arguing with Miyuki about the orders that had been passed on.

I was actually enjoying somewhat, as Shion can be quite good at debating, when Hammer walked in. "Hey, Victor, there's a call for you."

I glanced at him. "Who's it from?"

"Some woman named Klein."

At that, I glanced sharply at him. "That wouldn't be Tamara Klein, would it?"

Hammer glanced at the terminal he carried. "Yeah, that's it. How'd you know?"

I broke into a grin. "Put it through to my cabin, Hammer. I'll be right there." Ignoring the puzzled expressions Hammer and Allen wore, I walked quickly to the cabin I shared with the crew.

The terminal came on as I sat down. A blonde-haired woman who appeared to be around thirty appeared on the screen. "Hey, Tamara! Long time no see."

Tamara Klein smiled back, but it seemed somehow strained. "Hello, Victor. It has been a while, hasn't it? Feels like three hundred years."

"That's because it has been three hundred years, my friend. It was that civil war on Keltia, wasn't it? The one where I had my heart blown out by an errant missile?"

"Yeah, I think so." Tamara lost the smile completely. "But this isn't a social call, old friend. You've been out of the loop for while, so maybe you don't know this: The Gathering is-" Suddenly, the image turned to static, and there was a distorted scream. Then it all went black.

"Tamara? What happened? Tamara!" The display vanished entirely. I cursed vilely and slammed my fist into the wall as hard as I could, breaking it and sending tremors through a couple meters of bulkhead.

Shion walked in just then. "Victor, there's new orders-" She broke off, seeing my broken hand and the fury on my face, combined with the vile language I was using. "Victor? What happened?"

I broke off my swearing as the bones knitted. "I don't know, Shion, and that's the problem. That was Tamara Klein, an old friend of mine and fellow Immortal. We go back about two thousand years, so I could tell something was wrong. She started to tell me, but only got as far as 'The Gathering is-' before something cut her off. And I think she's dead."

Shion sat next to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Victor. She was a close friend?" I nodded. "But what could she have meant by 'The Gathering is-'? What gathering?"

I got my emotions under control. "I think I know. When there are only a few of us left, we will feel a strange pull toward a faraway place, where the last of us will battle until there is only one left. That is the Gathering that we've been waiting for since the very beginning."

"You mean, there aren't very many of you left now? And where is this 'faraway place'?"

I looked up. "I can only take Tamara's word for our numbers; I really have been out of the loop for a while. But if the Gathering is truly here, there can't be more than a dozen, two at the most. As for where, I don't know for sure. But I think it's one of two places, one of them being Second Miltia. It would explain certain things."

"You mentioned two places," she said. "What's the other?"

I looked straight at her. "A place you once knew very well," I said softly. "A place you had to leave, fourteen years ago."

Shion gasped. "Miltia!?"

"Yeah. Given all that's been going on, I think that Miltia is probably it." I paused. "If this is the Gathering, there is a very good chance I'll be dead in the next year or so. I'm not sure I'm good enough to defeat the others. Fortunately, I suppose, Tamara was my last Immortal friend, so that won't complicate things. But I won't be the safest person to be around, once we reach civilized space. I should probably get on the next ship as far from you as possible. I don't want to get you involved."

Shion shook her head firmly. "No, Victor. We'll take our chances. You said it yourself once: even Immortals can't go through life without friends, and you just said Klein was the last Immortal you could consider such. And if it is Miltia, it can't be quite yet. There's no way to get there right now, remember?" She smiled. "Besides, where would we be without you around to keep me out of trouble?"

I shook my head in resignation. "Okay, if you insist on taking the risk, I'll stick around. And I guess you're right; Tamara didn't get a chance to tell me if the Gathering is actually here or merely imminent." I stood abruptly. "Well, Shion, if you're going to keep nearly getting yourself killed..." I knelt, drawing Lady Vivamus and laying it at Shion's feet. "Will you accept my services as bodyguard?"

She laughed. "Get up, Victor. I thought chivalry was dead, anyway."

I straightened, sheathing my blade. "Debatable. If Duncan MacLeod is still around, ask him. 'Death before dishonor'. But I'm serious. I've had to get you out of half a dozen near-fatal situations in the last three days alone. You need someone to watch your back."

Shion laughed again. "All right, Victor, I accept. You'd do it anyway, I'm sure. By the way, where did you learn to act like a chivalrous knight?"

I smiled. "As it happens, my first teacher, on Earth, was born during the Age of Chivalry. I suspect he either had a bizarre sense of humor or had taken too many blows to the head, though. That was how he acted, all the time. By then I'd had enough interest in history to know that the classic 'chivalrous knight', as you put it, never existed. They were, by and large, lecherous bastards with a taste for killing in God's name. I would imagine that few of them actually read the Bible; nowhere does it advocate things such as the Crusades. For them, it was just an excuse to kill people."

She shook her head in amusement. "Victor, sometimes I just don't know what to make of you. Sometimes you act like a scholar, sometimes like the twenty-two year old engineer you look like."

"There's a reason for that," I said absently, while opening my storage case. "There's more to Immortality than merely a lack of aging; if that were all it was, you'd get tired of life in short order. No, what it actually entails is essentially the stoppage of time for the Immortal. I kept accumulating knowledge, but my personality remained the same. So, in most ways, I'm just as I was in 2012, when a mugger shot me dead." I attached a sound suppressor from the case to my USP. "I later hunted him down and killed him, by the way. You can call it justice or revenge, your choice. But sometimes an Immortal has to take the law into his own hands. Just as well; as it happened, the bastard was an Immortal himself. I gather he'd intended to make me an Immortal, then kill me before I could learn what I was. Not a good move."

"How did he know what you were?"

"Immortals can sense each other," I replied. "Call it a sixth sense; we all have ESP, to a degree. I only know of one who could actually predict the future, and Cassandra was quite literally a witch. But to return to my point, we can also sense potential Immortals. Their, call it their taste, for lack of a better term, is somewhat different from those who have already come into their own. Weaker, you might say." I frowned. "By the way, what are the new orders from HQ?"

Shion's expression brightened. "That, at least, is good news. Miyuki put me through to the Director, and I convinced him that the orders Miyuki had relayed weren't a good idea."

I winced. "'Convinced' him? I assume that means you shouted at him until he broke."

"Pretty much. Anyway, we're no longer to turn KOS-MOS over to the Second Division once we reach Second Miltia. We're to continue field testing until we're sure there won't be a repeat of two years ago."

"Wise, though U-TIC had more to do with that than anything else." And I wonder how long you're going to be able to stretch that time, Shion? I know that you don't like the idea of giving up KOS-MOS at all; for that matter, neither do I. But sooner or later, someone is going to notice. Then my thoughts turned to another matter. Whether the Gathering is here or not, I am going to hunt down the bastard who killed Tamara, and I am going to cut him to pieces before taking his head. My last Immortal friend, a woman I knew for two thousand years, is gone, and I will make her murderer pay.

Shion caught my change of expression. "Are you going to be alright, Victor? You're taking Klein's death pretty hard."

I shook my head, not in disagreement but rather to clear it. "Yeah, I'll be fine. But I'm going to have Hammer trace that call. Wherever Tamara was, her killer will be. And I think I know who did it. James MacPherson." I looked up, fury smoldering in my eyes. "Call it revenge if you want, but I'm going to kill him very slowly and very painfully. Tamara Klein was one of the few souls in the universe that meant anything to me, and I'm going to make that bastard rot in whatever underworld you care to name."

She gripped my arm. "Alright, but I'll run the trace myself. Hammer may be a better hacker, but I know Vector's U.M.N. connections."

"Thanks, Shion."

***

I was back on the Bridge within an hour, having regained my composure. I was also carrying a suppressed autopistol, newly-sharpened katana, several spare magazines with varying types of ammunition, and a pair of hand grenades. Tamara's disappearance had left me paranoid and in a very bad mood.

Shion came in moments later. "Oh? Commander Cherenkov isn't here?"

"Is something wrong?" chaos asked.

"Well, he skipped dinner again, so I thought he might have been here with you."

Hammer glanced up. "Did you check outside? He said something about hiring a charter flight."

Matthews turned. "Wait a minute... Wearing that uniform?"

"Yeah."

He turned to the viewport. "Oh, that's bad. The military wrecked the place during the war, and the people here still remember it."

"Is it really that dangerous here?" Shion asked.

"Well, it's fine if you're a civilian..."

"Then we'd better go find him before anything happens," chaos said.

"I'll go get Ziggy," Shion said. "He'll probably come in handy at a time like this."

I paused for a moment, then reached up and removed the insignia from my flight jacket. It was a relic from my time in the Miltian Conflict, so the residents likely wouldn't be pleased by the sight. Without markings, however, it was just another piece of surplus. "I'll go with you," I said, and pulled out my USP. Ejecting the current magazine, I fished in an ammo pouch and inserted a different type.

Shion showed no surprise at my intentions, but she did glance curiously at my weapon. "What did you just load that with, Victor?"

I smiled grimly. "Hollowpoints, and I don't think you want to know what I filled them with. Suffice to say that if the bullet itself doesn't drop 'em, the stuff in the points will." I slipped the weapon back into the shoulder holster. "Let's go."

***

To locate Ziggy, we needed only to ask our resident Observational Realian. Once we found him, we entered the Dock Colony itself.

"Man, the Marines really did a number on this place, didn't they," I said. "Glad I was still on Miltia at the time; I would have needed to fake my own death to avoid participating in this massacre, otherwise."

"Easier for you than most, Victor," Shion replied. "You can kill yourself to get out that."

"And have," I commented. "That's why I've never reached high rank in any military; it becomes necessary for me to die before my lack of aging is noticed. The highest I ever got was Major, during the Miltian Conflict, and that was a field-promotion." I glanced at the rough-looking types that seemed to fill the area around the dock itself. "You'd think Cherenkov would know that coming here in uniform is a bad idea; I certainly heard about what happened here before long."

"How long were you in the Federation Military?" Ziggy asked.

"About five years; four years prior to the end of the Conflict, then another year before I arranged an accident that wiped me from the active database. I was using the name Jeffrey Thompson at the time, and-" I broke off; a familiar feeling was going through my skull.

Shion paused. "Victor? What is it?"

I turned slowly, looking over the area. "Shion, everybody, get going."

"Victor?" chaos said.

I turned. "I said go! There's an Immortal here somewhere." My gaze finally settled on a Germanic-looking fellow.

He sauntered over. "Well, if it isn't Victor Corvin. MacPherson told me to expect you."

I gazed coldly at him. "Reinhardt Mittler. I might have known. So you're working for that lowlife Scotsman now?" I drew Lady Vivamus. "I have one question for you, Mittler, and depending on how you answer it I might let you live." In a flash, my blade was at his throat. "Tell me what happened to Tamara Klein," I hissed angrily, "and tell me now!"

In the corner of my eye, I saw Shion take a step back; this was a side of my personality I'd never shown before. But my attention was focused on Mittler. "Why should I tell you that, Corvin?" Despite his bravado, however, the German was clearly nervous. He had, as had many others in the past, taken me at face value, not looking beyond my young appearance despite the fact that we had met before.

"Not expecting that, tough guy?" I added more pressure against his throat. "You guys who come into Immortality at a later age are all the same. You look at my face, not my age. You look at my headhunting record, not my skill." I paused for a moment, pressing even harder. "Tell me now!" I screamed in his face.

Mittler actually managed a weak chuckle. "You know, Corvin, I'll rest easy in the grave just knowing that I deprived you of information that means so much to you." He smiled. "You'll just have to kill me."

With a snarl, I spun away abruptly, raising my blade to a high guard position. "Then draw your blade, coward, and we'll settle this in battle!"

"As you wish." Mittler drew a German rapier, a design that appeared almost like a saber, and saluted. "May the best fighter win," he said mockingly.

"Indeed," I growled. I knew that my companions were still in the area, but by now I was beyond caring. "Soon, the best will!" I lunged, using a powerful chopping attack as an opener. The German's blade used a faster style, but the rapier had a weakness: It was meant for the thrust and parry, not the cut and block. If I could get in a solid hit, his weapon would snap.

But for all his arrogance, Mittler had skill. His sword moved as an extension of his arm, sweeping around not to block, but to deflect my aim. His intention was apparently to trap my weapon in his rapiers handguard, which was designed with sword-breaking in mind. Unfortunately for him, however, I tended to study Immortals whom I might someday find myself battling, and knew his tactics.

So I jumped his counterattack, lashing out with a booted foot, trying for his kneecap. Mittler responded by taking a quick step backwards, then attempting a sleight-of-hand move: he threw a dagger, aiming for my right arm. But my reflexes were far too fast, and I swatted the blade away. "Is that the best you can do, Mittler? I would expect one of MacPherson's flunkies to be better than that."

He smiled. "Perhaps I'm just toying with you, Corvin. After all, I do have the knowledge you seek. You do want to find out what happened to your old girlfriend, don't you?"

With an incoherent sound of rage, I attacked once more. "You talk too much, Reinhardt!" With a burst of strength, I shoved him off balance. "You've made the wrong choice, idiot! Did your teacher never tell you that you shouldn't challenge Immortals with thousands of years more experience!? This is your last mistake!"

Mittler took a step back, the first true sign of fear showing on his face. "Is this how your pupil would want you to remember her, Victor? Would Tamara want you to kill in her memory?"

I forced him back another step. "Don't you even mention that name, kraut! You're not worthy of it!" I swung again and again. "You're just playing word games, anyway! And you know this is how Immortals remember their fallen friends! We kill the bastards who killed them or would profane their memories!"

Fear was now obvious on my opponent's face. "You've just been toying with me, haven't you!?"

"That's right!" With one final strike, I snapped his blade in half. "Now we end this, bastard! There can be only one!" I slashed one last time, and Mittler's head flew from his shoulders.

That's when the light show began. Fog drifted from the corpse, swirling around me, and lightning played over my body. I screamed, arms outstretched, and Lady Vivamus fell from my hand as my body writhed.

After perhaps a minute of this, I collapsed, exhausted. It was my first Quickening in years, and Mittler, for all his inferiority compared to me, had taken a great many heads over the years.

Shion was quickly kneeling at my side. "Victor, are you okay? What happened!?"

I slowly raised my head. "It's called the Quickening. When one Immortal kills another, the loser's essence, essentially, flows into the victor, making him stronger and temporarily flattening him. Guess I forgot to mention it." I staggered to my feet. "Come on, let's find the Commander. I'll explain that little conversation when we get back to the ship."

***

I resumed my place slightly behind Shion, once I regained sufficient energy, and we continued the search through the Colony.

Hammer met us not far from the Colony's clinic. He was apparently scared out of his mind, or so I judged from his speech patterns. "Sh-Sh-Shion, come quick! In the thug, the alleyway is beat up all Commander!"

"Um, Hammer, calm down a little," Shion said. "You're not making any sense."

"There's no time to calm down! Come on!"

He lead us down a nearby alley, where we found several street thugs unconscious, possibly dead. "Shion, we must get these people to a hospital immediately," Ziggy said, kneeling. "They're still alive, but barely hanging on."

"I-I'll go call an ambulance," Hammer stammered, and ran off.

"But where's the Commander?" Shion wondered aloud.

"I'm detecting a heat signature heading for the ship," Ziggy reported. "It probably belongs to the Commander."

"Then I suppose we ought to catch up with him and find out what happened here," I said. "Something doesn't feel right."

We turned and headed for the ship as the ambulance arrived.

***

Author's note: I realize that chapter got a little ridiculous once or twice, and I'll try to avoid that in the future. But I think this new subplot should make up for that. In Chapter 5, the endless trek through the Cathedral Ship will occur, and Victor's "history" with Tamara Klein will be fleshed out.

It seems I was wrong that the Kukai Foundation would be the earliest point at which an Immortal duel could be worked in, so I introduced one here. I hope you like the new side of Victor's personality that showed itself here.

Also, I believe I may have gotten some of the events out of order; if so, I apologize. I don't quite recall the exact sequence.

That should about cover things for this chapter; I could use some more reviews, though. Let me know what you think of this chapter. ~Solid Shark